Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The putatively 'Chechen' terrorists have detonated two more bombs in Russia, this time in Dagestan. In think that the trend here is clear - 'Chechen' terrorism is on the rise again, striking at strategic Russian targets (such as the Moscow-Petersburg train or the Moscow subway). The curious thing is that this is all happening while in Chechnia proper there is comparatively very little insurgent activity. I would like to offer you a hypothesis, a 'version of events', which makes sense to me but for which I have no proof whatsoever. I already mentioned it several times in the comments section, but I would like to submit it to you all for consideration:

The recent upsurge in 'Chechen' terrorism might have little or nothing to do with Chechnia. Yes, the executors of these operations are probably ethnic Chechens and they are probably acting under the orders of Doku Umarov, the modestly self-styled 'First Emir of the Caucasus Emirate". But so what? How does that explain anything?

Osama bin-Laden was a CIA agent for most of his life (he is probably dead by now) and there is overwhelming evidence that the entire Chechen insurgency was CIA supported via what came to be known as al-Qaeda. It is also quite clear that the British secret services have been working hand in hand with Boris Berezovsky and, therefore, with his Chechen agents, for many years too. So instead of referring to 'Chechen' terrorism, would it not make far more sense to speak of US and British terrorism? Are the Chechen insurgents not the Caucasian version of Jundallah - yet another CIA controlled terrorist network and is Doku Umarov not just the local Abdolmalek Rigi?

If this is true, what would explain the sudden surge in 'Chechen' terrorism in Russia? I would submit that all of the following:

Payback for the US/NATO defeat in the 08.08.08 war in Georgia in which Russian forces easily crushed NATO-funded, NATO-trained and NATO-commanded Georgian forces even though the latter achieved strategic and tactical surprise and had the numerical superiority up until the last day of the war.

The need to put Russian under pressure to yield to US demands over Iran, be it sanctions, the Russian completion of the Bushehr, the sale of S-300 air defense systems and the need to get a UN resolution against Iran.

Payback for the US defeat in the Ukraine where the end of the color-coded revolution (orange, this time) is a crushing disaster for US geostrategic interests.

The need to weaken Russian influence in the Caucasus (who would want to follow Saakashvili's example now?) and in Central Asia by showing that Russia is not nearly as strong as some might have perceived it to be.

Payback for Russian support (weapons and credits) for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

I think that it is far more likely that this explains the sudden surge of 'Chechen' terrorism in Russia than a rather inexplicable, apparently cause-less, truly 'Chechen' hypothesis. To repeat, there is no sign whatsoever that the Chechen insurgency has recovered from its close to total defeat in the 2nd Chechen war. All, and I mean all, the reports from Chechnia proper seem to indicate that the security situation is Chechnia is actually very good and that Moscow's control of the region, via Ramazan Kadyrov's 'heavy-handed' security services, is actually rather good. This is a little reported fact, but the Russian military is not, at the moment, actively involved in Chechnia at all. The security mission is shared by the FSB, the MVD and local police forces.

I might be wrong, of course. We might be seeing the first phases of a real resurgence of Chechen terrorism. I personally don't trust Kadyrov and his thugs one bit. But right now, there is no explanation for the 'Chechen terror' theory at all. Moreover, reports out of Moscow claim that the FSB is looking into contacts which the Chechens had with the Georgians (again!). If the Georgians are involved in any way at all, that would point straight to Langley, at least in my opinion.

Anway - I submit to you this hypothesis and I hope that you will share your views on that we me and the rest of us.

On a personal note: I am taking a week off and, barring some truly major event, I shall not post new pieces here until next Thursday. I will be reading comments though, and I will try to post (very short) replies if needed.

Please feel free to use the comments section as a free for all forum, and post anything you want. On my blog there is no such thing as 'off-topic' and you need not worry about that.

I have been watching the news out of Moscow over the past 24 hours and they make for a rather depressing viewing indeed. No, I am not referring to the two blasts in the Moscow subway system which, of course, are tragic events, but to the rhetoric of the Russian authorities. Listening to the Russian news, I was wondering if the script had been written in Washington, DC.

President Medvedev immediately declared that the Russian legislation needed to be changed to fight against what many Russians now call 'al-Qaeda in the Caucasus'. What he did not explain, of course, is how exactly the current legislation had anything to do with the fact that terrorists could detonate bombs in Moscow.

Does that not sound familiar to those living in the USA?

And let's remember the past. While I am not accusing the Russian authorities of being behind an 9/11-like 'inside job' (although many questions remain about the 1999 appartment building bombings ), there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the first Chechen war was made possible by elements inside the Kremlin under Eltsin and that it was artificially prolonged by 'deep state' forces in Moscow.

Ever since Putin came to power, the various security services have seen a real bonanza of funding, quite in contrast to the military which has seen dramatic cuts in its financing and even key forces. For example, 3 (three!) Spetsnaz brigades from the GRU have been simply disbanded (the 67th, 12th and 3d) and there were plans of cutting the GRU command in Moscow by 50 (that is fifty!) percent. Even though this last folly has been put on hold, for the time being at least, the combination of these 'reforms' represents no less than a de-facto crippling of one of the most effective parts of the Russian military. There were also equally absurd plans to disband the 106th Guards Airborne Division, arguably the second best airborne division in the Russian military. These plans were also 'frozen', at least for a while. But the trend is clear: Putin and Medvedev are disbanding elite military forces.

While this is going on, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service forces are being superbly financed, they get many brand new, top of the line, training facilities, and their resources are greatly increased. To put it crudely, what the current Russian government wants is cops, not soldiers.

Combine that trend with the US-like response to the latest bombings and the image becomes clear: Russia is also on the slippery path of becoming a police state. There are, of course, some important differences between Russia and the USA and these should not be overlooked.

For one thing, Russia is a 'normal' country, not an empire like the USA. Crucially, Russia does abide by the norms of international law, unlike the USA which considers itself above any such law. Russia does have a truly free press. In contrast, the US press would make Suslov or Goebbels blue with envy. Russia is not under the ironclad control of Zionists (neither Jewish nor Christian). Russian intelligences agencies are not in the business of overthrowing governments worldwide and the Russian military budget is not larger than the combined military defense budget of the rest of the planet which, of course, the US 'defense' budget it. Russia does not have 700+ military bases worldwide and Russia does not have 16 major intelligence' agencies (only 3: FSB, GRU, SVR) and last, but not least, the level of education of the Russian population is higher than in the USA by several orders of magnitude. So the situation in Russia is not quite as ominous as it is in the USA. Still, all the signs are here that the Putin-Medvedev rule has all the signs of being a 'by the cops, for the cops' kind of regime.

Listening to Russian commentators immediately referring to "al-Qaeda in the Caucasus" as being behind the Moscow bombings made me feel very uncomfortable. Its not that I have any reason to doubt that Chechen terrorists are behind these bombings (I am quite aware that that the Chechen insurgents are among the most evil and crazed Wahabi thugs on the planet), but I cannot help but wonder why the 'al-Qaeda' label had to be attached to them. Sure, Doku Umarov, the so-called "First Emir of the Caucasus Emirate", is a murderous thug and the Chechen insurgency has had close contacts with what has become to be known as 'al-Qaeda' for many years. But these Chechens have also had contacts with the US, British, Turkish and Israeli intelligences agencies and yet no Russian commentators speaks of "CIA in the Caucasus"...

In the meanwhile, US and British 'terrorism experts' are on Russian TV pontificating about how 'terrorism is a world-wide global problem' which threatens 'all democratic states' (since when do Yanks and Brits refer to Russia as being 'democratic' again?!).

The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class that deserves the hatred it engenders.

"We are ruled not by two parties but one party," Cynthia McKinney, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket, told me. "It is the party of money and war. Our country has been hijacked. And we have to take the country away from those who have hijacked it. The only question now is whose revolution gets funded."

The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward. They think that passing a jobs bill that will give tax credits to corporations is a rational response to an unemployment rate that is, in real terms, close to 20 percent. They think that making ordinary Americans, one in eight of whom depends on food stamps to eat, fork over trillions in taxpayer dollars to pay for the crimes of Wall Street and war is acceptable. They think that the refusal to save the estimated 2.4 million people who will be forced out of their homes by foreclosure this year is justified by the bloodless language of fiscal austerity. The message is clear. Laws do not apply to the power elite. Our government does not work. And the longer we stand by and do nothing, the longer we refuse to embrace and recognize the legitimate rage of the working class, the faster we will see our anemic democracy die.

The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia. The petty criminals and goons who took power harnessed the anger and despair of the unemployed and the desperate. They singled out convenient scapegoats from ethnic Croats to Muslims to Albanians to Gypsies. They set in motion movements that unleashed a feeding frenzy leading to war and self-immolation. There is little difference between the ludicrous would-be poet Radovan Karadzic, who was a figure of ridicule in Sarajevo before the war, and the moronic Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin. There is little difference between the Oath Keepers and the Serbian militias. We can laugh at these people, but they are not the fools. We are.

The longer we appeal to the Democrats, who are servants of corporate interests, the more stupid and ineffectual we become. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe the country is in decline, according to a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, and they are right. Only 25 percent of those polled said the government can be trusted to protect the interests of the American people. If we do not embrace this outrage and distrust as our own it will be expressed through a terrifying right-wing backlash.

"It is time for us to stop talking about right and left," McKinney told me. "The old political paradigm that serves the interests of the people who put us in this predicament will not be the paradigm that gets us out of this. I am a child of the South. Janet Napolitano tells me I need to be afraid of people who are labeled white supremacists but I was raised around white supremacists. I am not afraid of white supremacists. I am concerned about my own government. The Patriot Act did not come from the white supremacists, it came from the White House and Congress. Citizens United did not come from white supremacists, it came from the Supreme Court. Our problem is a problem of governance. I am willing to reach across traditional barriers that have been skillfully constructed by people who benefit from the way the system is organized."

We are bound to a party that has betrayed every principle we claim to espouse, from universal health care to an end to our permanent war economy, to a demand for quality and affordable public education, to a concern for the jobs of the working class. And the hatred expressed within right-wing movements for the college-educated elite, who created or at least did nothing to halt the financial debacle, is not misplaced. Our educated elite, wallowing in self-righteousness, wasted its time in the boutique activism of political correctness as tens of millions of workers lost their jobs. The shouting of racist and bigoted words at black and gay members of Congress, the spitting on a black member of the House, the tossing of bricks through the windows of legislators' offices, are part of the language of rebellion. It is as much a revolt against the educated elite as it is against the government. The blame lies with us. We created the monster.

When someone like Palin posts a map with cross hairs on the districts of Democrats, when she says "Don't Retreat, Instead-RELOAD!" there are desperate people cleaning their weapons who listen. When Christian fascists stand in the pulpits of megachurches and denounce Barack Obama as the Antichrist, there are messianic believers who listen. When a Republican lawmaker shouts "baby killer" at Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak, there are violent extremists who see the mission of saving the unborn as a sacred duty. They have little left to lose. We made sure of that. And the violence they inflict is an expression of the violence they endure.

These movements are not yet full-blown fascist movements. They do not openly call for the extermination of ethnic or religious groups. They do not openly advocate violence. But, as I was told by Fritz Stern, a scholar of fascism who has written about the origins of Nazism, "In Germany there was a yearning for fascism before fascism was invented." It is the yearning that we now see, and it is dangerous. If we do not immediately reincorporate the unemployed and the poor back into the economy, giving them jobs and relief from crippling debt, then the nascent racism and violence that are leaping up around the edges of American society will become a full-blown conflagration.

Left unchecked, the hatred for radical Islam will transform itself into a hatred for Muslims. The hatred for undocumented workers will become a hatred for Mexicans and Central Americans. The hatred for those not defined by this largely white movement as American patriots will become a hatred for African-Americans. The hatred for liberals will morph into a hatred for all democratic institutions, from universities to government agencies to the press. Our continued impotence and cowardice, our refusal to articulate this anger and stand up in open defiance to the Democrats and the Republicans, will see us swept aside for an age of terror and blood.-------Commentary: has anybody noticed that Chris Hedges has been on a spree of very good articles recently? If not, goggle his recent stuff, there is a lot of very insightful pieces there.

While I have some disagreements about his characterization of the causes of war in the former Yugoslavia, I do agree with him that the potential for Fascism in the USA is huge and frightening. I would even go further and argue that while the US population might have a potential for Fascism, the regime in Washington and the elite which runs the USA is *already* clearly Fascist. I have written several articles about the growth of Fascism in the USA (Rudy Guiliani - the face of American Fascism, When is the use of the 'F' word appropriate?, The only thing which can prevent a Fascist President in 2008) and I would say that all my worst fears soon became true: Obama and his Democracts are Fascists is the worst sense of the word and I don't see *any* reason to hope in the foreseeable future.

So yes, combine a collapsing economy, militarism run amok, nationalist and outright xenophobic feelings on the rise, a totally crushed labor movement and, worse, a totally crushed labor class, and you get a lot of unreleased anger which can very easily be channelled into exactly the kind of 'Imperial' ideology which both factions of the Republicrat Party have been promoting since WWII.

It is true that there are millions of Americans out there who hate Washington and many of them fully understand that things are only going to get worse. The frightening thing is that these Americans are the biggest danger for the elites who have taken over the country. This, in turn, means that it is quite possible that martial law might be introduced in the country under some 'patriotically pious' pretext. More cops, more jails, more prisons, the National Guard under Federal authority, FEMA camps, ICE raids, DEA raids, FBI raids, Blackwater, a USNORTHCOM, Presidential authority to suspend the Constitution in a national crisis, the CIA and NSA on an orgy of snooping targeting Americans, the iron grip control of the press by Jewish and Christian Zionists, the PATRIOT act and all the rest of it are only more dots connecting a line which can only be called Fascism.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva adopted the Goldstone resolution this morning, with 29 in favor, 6 against and 11 abstentions. The resolution, “Follow-up to the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,” was submitted by Sudan on behalf of the Arab Group, Pakistan on behalf of the OIC and Palestine. The countries voting against the resolution were: the Netherlands, the United States, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy and the Ukraine. Among the abstentions were the United Kingdom, France and Belgium.

The resolution reiterates the recommendations of the Goldstone report and calls for the creation of an assessment committee to oversee implementation of the report’s recommendations. It also creates an escrow fund for Palestinian victims of alleged Israeli violations, ignoring the proposal by Switzerland to create a fund for victims on both sides of the conflict. The Netherlands, Hungary and Slovakia called the fund “premature” given that investigations into alleged violations have not yet been completed.

“This resolution offers no real hope for Israelis or Palestinians,” said Israeli ambassador to the UN in Geneva Aharon Leshno Yaar. He called the resolution a “duplication” of last month’s General Assembly resolution on the Goldstone report.

Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Ibrahim Khraishi challenged the statement made by Israel and called for follow-up reports by the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Amb. Eileen Donahoe of the United States called for a two-state solution, adding that “the best way to avoid abuses in the Arab-Israeli conflict is to end it.” Calling for a vote, the United States urged other members “to join us in voting no.” The vote follows four sequential condemnatory resolutions against Israel, all passed with large majorities yesterday afternoon.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The UN Human Rights Council has roundly condemned the State of Israel in resolutions tabled under the highly controversial agenda item 7, “Human Rights Situation in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories.” Five resolutions have been tabled against Israel, amounting to the greatest number of condemnatory resolutions on a single country.

The first resolution, "Human Rights in the Occupied Syrian Golan,” was adopted by a wide majority, with 31 countries in favor, 1 against and 15 abstentions. The United States was the only member to vote against the resolution, the European Union jointly abstaining.

Eleven years ago NATO opened its bombing campaign against Serbia, illegally and without provocation. It started on March 24, 1999, and continued for 78 days and nights. It was the most intensive air offensive suffered by any country since the end of the Second World War.

Over a thousand people were killed and the civilian infrastructure of Serbia was destroyed, but it proved unable to degrade the Serbian military. It caused far more suffering than it prevented. For the first time since its founding the North Atlantic Alliance, led by the United States, acted in violation of its own treaty and the United Nations Charter by using violence to resolve an international dispute. This illegal act marked a historical turning point and was a fatal step in dismantling the framework of peace and security that had governed international relations since the end of the Second World War. It set precedents that will continue to plague international affairs for years. The bombing also revealed a disturbing reality that has continued to haunt us: the ease with which our democratic countries can be led into committing acts of violence and war by political leaders prepared to tell us lies.

President Clinton, Prime Minister Blair and other NATO leaders told their citizens that the bombing of Serbia was a humanitarian intervention to stop President Milosevic of Serbia from committing genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian majority in Kosovo. This of course was not true: forensic times have found some 2000 victims of the Kosovo conflict so far – Serbian and Albanian, civilian and military – who had been killed prior to NATO’s air war in March 1999. Distressing as this figure may be, it is not genocide. Nevertheless, the accusations that genocide took place in Kosovo continue to be accepted without hesitation by the western media.

The claim about ethnic cleansing was also a falsehood. While it is true that several thousand Albanians had been displaced within Kosovo by the armed conflict between the Serb security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the large-scale exodus of the Albanian population occurred after the bombing started. United Nations figures show that the mass of refugees fled Kosovo after the first bombs began to fall In other words, it was the bombing that caused the flight from Kosovo. Despite the proof of this we continue to hear in the western media that the NATO bombing “stopped ethnic cleansing.”

In reality the bombing of Serbia had nothing to do with genocide or ethnic cleansing. The bombing had everything to do with demonstrating that NATO was still a viable military organization and was needed in Europe. There is ample evidence now to show that the United States and British secret services aided and abetted the KLA in its efforts to use violence to destabilize Kosovo and to create the excuse for NATO intervention.

The Kosovo crisis and the 78 day bombing campaign against Serbia was from the outset a carefully planned fraud. Because bombing people for humanitarian reasons was an obvious contradiction, it had to be portrayed as an urgently needed rescue mission to stop the “genocide” that was allegedly taking place in Kosovo. This was done by a highly organized publicity campaign designed to deceive a compliant media and a gullible public that Milosevic was evil and that the Serbs were barbarians who had to be stopped. Hailed as the man who brought the Bosnian war to a conclusion at Dayton four years earlier, he was now depicted as the “butcher of the Balkans” and conveniently charged by The Hague War Crimes Tribunal as a war criminal. The duplicity and the deception which reached their height during the bombing itself has continued to this day.

The subsequent policies followed by the United States and its NATO allies have not only continued to be based on falsehood and hypocrisy, but also continue to pose a threat to world peace and security.

The heart of the problem has been what appears to be a determination of the United States policy makers, whether Democrat or Republican, to look upon the Western Balkans as their special fiefdom where international rules of conduct do not apply. It is as if they regard these Slavic lands as lesser breeds without the law, and therefore can do with them whatever they deem desirable. This hubris has lead the United States and the obedient but morally bankrupt leaders of Germany, France and Great Britain to follow wrong-headed policies such as the bombing of Serbia and the recognition of Kosovo independence – and to do so without scruples.

Perhaps it is too much to hope for that the critical financial problems faced by the United States and many European countries will curtail their meddling in the affairs of smaller nations and give them pause to reflect that the rule of law applies to all and that international disputes must be resolved without the use of force. This is the hope – however tenuous - expressed by our Foundation's members, friends and associates on the eleventh anniversary of the bombing of Serbia.

In 1991 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a nominally defensive military bloc with sixteen members that, as the cliche ran, had never fired a shot.

In 1991 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the only simultaneously multiethnic and multiconfessional nation (entirely) in Europe, consisting of six federated republics with diverse constituencies.

By 2009 NATO had grown to 28 full members and at least that many military partners throughout Europe and in Africa, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Asia and the South Pacific. Next month NATO is to hold a summit in Estonia to be attended by the foreign ministers of 56 nations. Last month a meeting of NATO’s Military Committee in Brussels included the armed forces chiefs of 63 nations, almost a third of the world’s 192 countries.

By 2008 the former Yugoslavia has been fragmented into six recognized nations (the former federal republics of Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia) and a semi-recognized province of Serbia, Kosovo.

Until the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991, NATO had never staged operations outside the territory of its member states.

In 2004 it ran eight operations in four continents, including a training mission in Iraq and combat deployments in Afghanistan. The first former Yugoslav republic, Slovenia, was inducted into NATO in that year along with six other Eastern European nations in the bloc’s largest-ever expansion.

The Alliance’s first three military operations, however, all occurred in the former Yugoslavia. In 1995 NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force against the Republika Srpska with 400 aircraft and over 3,500 sorties and stationed troops in Bosnia afterward.

In 1999 it unleashed the relentless 78-day Operation Allied Force air war against Yugoslavia and in June of that year deployed 50,000 troops to Kosovo.

Two years later it sent troops to and initiated the first of several operations in Macedonia following an armed conflict in that country.

The three interventions preceded September 11, 2001.

After NATO invoked its Article 5 collective military assistance clause following the latter date, NATO Partnership for Peace affiliates as well as full member states started to deploy troops to Afghanistan.

After the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq two years following that, soldiers from Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia were deployed to the war zone in that nation to prove their loyalty as NATO candidate countries. Montenegro did not gain its Western-backed independence until 2006, but has already been levied for troops for the Afghan war. Croatia was rewarded with full membership in 2009 and Macedonia would have accompanied it into the ranks of the world’s only military axis except for the lingering name dispute with Greece.

In December of 2008 the complete transfer of contributing states’ troops from Iraq to Afghanistan began and there are now military personnel from five of the six former Yugoslav republics – Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia – committed to NATO in the world’s longest active and deadliest war theater.

In the post-Cold War epoch the former Yugoslavia has been the laboratory for global NATO, its testing ground and battleground, the prototype for the disintegration of nations and for their transformation into economically nonviable monoethnic statelets and Western military colonies.

The NATO military command in charge of the Balkans, Allied Joint Force Command Naples formed in 2004, oversees the eleven-year NATO military operation in Kosovo, Kosovo Force (KFOR), and has a headquarters in Bosnia and in Macedonia and a new military liaison office in Serbia. (Croatia and Slovenia are now full members.)

In addition to the Adriatic Charter initiative launched by the United States in 2003, which successfully prepared Albania and Croatia for NATO membership and is currently doing the same for Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro with Serbia and Kosovo to follow, the Allied Joint Force Command Naples is the major mechanism for recruiting troops from former Yugoslav republics for wars abroad. Particularly for that in Afghanistan, but the Naples command also operates the NATO Training Mission – Iraq in Baghdad.

Considered by many observers as a major architect of the breakup of Yugoslavia, Richard Holbrooke, now U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, delivered an address in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar last month in which he “drew parallels between the Bosnian war and the onslaught against the Taliban in Afghanistan,” and said:

“The U.S. has led and won similar wars in Kosovo and Bosnia with the support of the international community. And we are very optimistic about Afghanistan too.” [1]

In the same month the parliament of the Republika Srpska passed a law allowing for a referendum on its current status within Bosnia – two years after the U.S. and almost all its NATO allies supported and recognized the secession of Kosovo from Serbia – and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reacted by stating that the Barack Obama administration does “not want to see any moves to break up Bosnia,” and to insure the integrity of Bosnia (and breakaway Kosovo also) she “reiterated Washington’s support for EU and NATO integration of Western Balkans countries, Serbia included.”

Also in February, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip Gordon sounded the same theme while speaking at the Harvard Kennedy School. In a presentation called The Obama Administration’s Vision for Southeastern Europe, Gordon said “To fully achieve European and therefore American security, we believe that peace and stability should not only extend across northern and central Europe, but also southeastern Europe,” with special emphasis on “Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Turkey.” [3]

In completing the incorporation of all of Southeastern Europe into the U.S.-dominated military bloc, the current American administration would put the capstone on “the historic project of trying to bring democracy to the whole of Europe.”

In particular, “the Obama administration will seek to position Bosnia for future membership in the European Union and NATO,” and in reference to Serbia, “The door to NATO membership is open”.”

According to Harvard’s daily student newspaper, Gordon noted in his speech that “yesterday marked the second anniversary of Kosovo’s independence: a sign that progress has been made.” [4]

Earlier this month former NATO secretary general George Robertson joined the chorus pushing the Alliance’s absorption of the Balkans: “Serbia can offer a lot….I believe it wants to become a part of [the] European mainstream rather than to stay on the margins. All the neighbors of Serbia will be members of the EU and NATO. I am convinced that all the Western Balkan countries will be part of the Alliance in ten years.” [5]

Serbia, by far the most populous of all former Yugoslav states with more than 7 million citizens, is receiving the most attention from NATO at the moment.

Mary Warlick, newly appointed U.S. ambassador to the nation, recently “announced that the door of NATO membership is open to Serbia” and said “the United States fully supports the European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations of Serbia and is doing all it can to facilitate Belgrade’s efforts in this direction.” [6]

Her comments were reiterated by NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the U.S.’s Admiral James Stavridis, who in early February visited Serbia’s capital “to establish personal relationships and strengthen cooperation and partnership” and meet with the nation’s president, defense minister and chief of staff of the armed forces. (NATO opened a military liaison office in Belgrade in December of 2006 when Serbia joined the bloc’s Partnership for Peace program.)

Stavridis’ NATO delegation was briefed “on the progress and continued efforts to professionalize the Serb military” and “participated in the annual National and Armed Forces Day reception.” [7]

Last year the pro-Western government of President Boris Tadic signed an Individual Partnership Program with NATO.

Recently the public affairs chief of the Serbian Ministry of Defense announced that a “Serbian mission [to] NATO will be officially opened by the beginning of June, which is in accordance with participation in the program Partnership for Peace,” and will be staffed by six officers. [8]

On the same day, and to provide a blunt indication of what further NATO integration means, a Serbian news source disclosed that troops from the nation are being readied for peacekeeping deployments in Uganda, Lebanon and a third nation as yet unidentified.

Whereas “the participation of the Serbian Army in international peace operations has until now been limited to sending observers and medical experts,” the country’s armed forces have “organized courses [for] which Serbian experts will be enabled to participate in infantry units and mine clearing units.”

Moreover, military analyst Aleksandar Radic said “NATO and the EU follow the participation of countries in peacekeeping missions very closely. The countries in our region have understood that and started participating in these missions in order to gain a reference for joining international organizations.” [9]

Serbian soldiers are inching ever closer to the Afghan war theater.

But not with the support of their countrymen.

Last month the results of a TNS Medium Gallup poll in Serbia showed that “only 20 percent of Serbian citizens would support NATO accession, which is four percent less than last year.” [10]

In tandem with moves to drag Serbia deeper into the NATO nexus despite widespread popular opposition, Brussels and Washington are consolidating their hold on the other three former Yugoslav republics not yet full NATO members: Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and a delegation of the permanent representatives of all 28 member states arrived in Bosnia on March 23 to consult with leaders of the nation on a Membership Action Plan, “an essential stepping stone on the road toward alliance membership.”

A senior official in Bosnia’s Foreign Ministry announced that “We expect that Bosnia will be invited to join [the] MAP in Tallinn,” [11] a reference to the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Estonia on April 10.

Earlier this month the chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nikola Spiric, visited NATO headquarters in Brussels to meet with Rasmussen and to address the North Atlantic Council.

“NATO Allies thanked Mr. Spiric for the invitation extended to the North Atlantic Council to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina later this month and looked forward to the next meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers in April, when the Membership Action Plan for the country will be discussed.” [12]

A week earlier a high-level NATO delegation headed by Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples, arrived in the Macedonian capital of Skopje to meet with Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, Defense Minister Zoran Konjanovski and chief of the Army General Staff Miroslav Stojanovski and discuss the Army of the Republic of Macedonia’s “contribution to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, the achievements of the Republic of Macedonia in the implementation of reforms and the participation in the command structure of the Alliance as well as ARM’s progress in the application of the NATO operation skills concept.”

The delegation also inspected a military base in Krivolak where Fitzgerald and his colleagues were “introduced to the new training capacities and the project of its development into a regional center.” [13]

On February 22nd Boro Vucinic, Montenegro’s defense minister, visited NATO headquarters and met with Deputy Secretary General Claudio Bisogniero. The latter “reaffirmed NATO’s willingness to continue providing relevant assistance and expertise to Montenegrin authorities” and “expressed satisfaction with Montenegro’s decision to become a contributor to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan.” [14]

In mid-March Admiral Fitzgerald was in Montenegro and at a press conference expressed his satisfaction at his host nation’s movement toward the North Atlantic bloc, stating “he had witnessed a significant improvement in the past two years,” and said “Montenegro had demonstrated it was a ‘responsible and reliable partner’ in the membership process.”

Speaker of the Parliament of Montenegro Ranko Krivokapic said that NATO membership was a “national priority” and that for the Alliance “it is also strategically important to have this part of the Adriatic coast integrated into the NATO structure.” [15]

On March 22 NATO’s KFOR launched five days of exercises throughout Kosovo in conjunction with the European Union’s EULEX (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo) and the separatist Kosovo Police Service (KPS).

The drills are headed by NATO commander Markus Bentler.

In an allusion to Kosovo’s ethnic Serb minority that KFOR, EULEX and the KPS are training to subjugate in common, a KFOR statement on the exercises said:

“KFOR will handle its force in Kosovo very flexibly and determinedly. The aim of these operations is to strengthen the capacities of KFOR, EULEX and the Kosovo police so that they could respond to any scenario that brings security into question.” [16]

The putative president of the Republic of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu, recently returned from NATO headquarters and a meeting of the bloc’s North Atlantic Council – usually reserved for the ambassadors of full member states – where he had updated those envoys on the “general evolution in Kosovo, Kosovo’s objective [of making] further progress and, especially, its ambition to become a member of NATO.”

Sedjiu had also “thanked the North Atlantic Council ambassadors for all the support that NATO has [provided] and is providing to Kosovo and has expressed the commitment of our institutions to an active partnership and close cooperation with NATO.”

At a press conference in Pristina after his return, he spoke of his offer to make members of the Kosovo Security Force, a NATO-trained national army in embryo, available for “NATO peacekeeping operations.” [17]

….

In 1991 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and from the following year onward the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, presented an obstacle to NATO’s drive to the east – the former Soviet Union and Asia – and to the south – the Middle East and Africa.

In the story of Aesop’s a bundle of sticks tied together could not be broken but, once separated, each could be easily snapped in two.

In completing the fragmentation of Yugoslavia NATO removed a crucial impediment to its expansion into a global military force. In its place it has acquired seven new members and candidates and as many potential sites for training camps, air and naval bases, and transit points for moving troops and weapons to new war zones on three continents and in the Middle East.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

NATO plans for Afghanistan this year are shaping up nicely: negotiate with the Taliban, but at the same time kill them in Kandahar and Kunduz, observes Eric Walberg

A joint operation involving several thousand troops was launched in Kandahar last week, the second one this year after Operation Mushtarak in Helmand province. Kandahar has been the bailiwick of 2,500 contingent of Canadian troops who have suffered heavy losses in this mountainous home of the Taliban. It is ruled by a Canadian national, Governor Tooryalai Wesa , a close friend of President Hamid Karzai’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairman of the Kandahar provincial council, infamous for his involvement in the drug trade.

Already, there are strong indications from Marja, that the new offensive will soon run into trouble. The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing there two weeks ago that killed 35. Though Marja now has one coalition soldier or policeman for every eight residents, after dark the city is like “the kingdom of the Taliban”, said a tribal elder in Marja. “The government and international forces cannot defend anyone even one kilometre from their bases.”

The new governor of Marja, Haji Abdul Zahir, like Wesa, a foreign national (German) parachuted in by the occupation forces, said the militants post “night letters” at mosques and on utility poles and hold meetings in randomly selected homes, demanding that residents turn over the names of collaborators. The Taliban “still have a lot of sympathy among the people.” Zahir has no idea how many Taliban are still in Marja. “It’s like an ant hole. When you look into an ant hole, who knows how many ants there are?”

Marja district MP Walid Jan Sabir scoffed at Zahir’s denial that the Taliban were beheading collaborators. “He is not from the area and he is only staying in his office, so he doesn’t know what is happening.” He predicts the situation will deteriorate and return to “chaos” as “the Taliban and Marja residents all have beards and turbans so it’s impossible to distinguish them.”

Will these campaigns in Marja, Kandahar and Kunduz subdue the Taliban and bring them to the negotiating table table (note: the recently announced talks with Hezb-e-Islami are an empty gesture), the newly professed strategy of the occupiers? It should not be forgotten that Karzai himself was a member of the Taliban government from 1995-98, before Unicol hired him as an insider to try to clinch an oil pipeline deal. His effortless transition to US protege suggests he was probably already on the US payroll, along with his less reputable colleague Osama bin Laden. Though Karzai sees negotiations as the only way out, comments by other ex-Taliban officials who have cast their lot with the occupiers, however reluctantly, are not encouraging.

The leading coopted Taliban, Abdul Salam Zaeef, holds no hope whatsoever. Zaeef was the Taliban’s minister of transportation until he became ambassador to Pakistan. His post-911 news conferences, where he condemned the attacks, insisted Osama bin Laden was not responsible, and offered to send him to a third country for trial, are now the stuff of legend. Despite his diplomatic immunity, he was arrested, held at Bagram and Guantanamo, and, according to his hot-off-the-Columbia-University-press My Life with the Taliban, tortured.

He was released in 2005 and returned to Afghanistan, where he was installed in an upscale home around the corner from ex-Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil and lives more-or-less under house arrest. In 2007 he called for a unity government and negotiations with the Taliban, no doubt at the prompting of his beleaguered former comrade-in-arms Karzai. However, in a recent interview, he gave no hope for the reconciliation process, as the US is “a monster” that is “selfish, reckless and cruel”, and the “reintegration process will further strengthen the Taliban.”

Hakim Mujahed, a former Taliban ambassador to the United Nations, reconciled with Karzai several years ago, and is currently the head of a Taliban splinter group Jamiat-i-Khuddamul Furqan, which still has not been incorporated into the US-controlled Afghan political process. He told the US-funded Radio Free Afghanistan that reconciling with the Taliban through a traditional Loya Jirga will not work “as long as the foreign powers – the United States and Britain in particular – don’t agree with this. The first important thing is to lift the sanctions on the leaders of the armed opposition. They are blacklisted and multimillion-dollar rewards are offered for them.” He wants Saudi Arabia to mediate. Clearly with Zaeef in mind, he argues that if a Taliban were to attend a Loya Jirga, “he might get captured the next day and end up in Guantanamo Bay. Our president has no authority to even release somebody from Bagram.”

Mulla Salam defected to the government three years ago in Helmand and was made district administrator of his native Musa Qala district as a reward. He bitterly sees the British occupation as a blatant act of revenge for their defeats in Afghanistan in the 19th century and regrets his decision, like Mujahed calling Karzai a powerless president. “We are still slaves. Foreign advisers are sitting in the offices.” He complains that no Afghan minister can even visit Helmand without the permission of British military commanders. The British troops “haven’t served our people and have yet to build schools or mosques in Musa Qala.” Poor Salam’s days are numbered as he has barely survived several assassination attempts. There will be no “reconciliation” for the likes of him.

Then there is Abdul Ghani Baradar – second in command only to Taliban leader Mohammed Omar – whose recent capture in Karachi was hailed by the US as a sign that Pakistan was getting serious at last. His arrest appears to have backfired big time. Not only has Pakistan refused to extradict him, but Karzai is apparently furious over the capture, as he was supposedly negotiating with Baradar to split the Taliban and coopt moderates.

Former UN special representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide, who stepped down this month (in disgust?), asserted last week that the arrest was a huge mistake, stopping a secret ongoing channel of communications with the UN, and revealed that he had been holding talks with senior Taliban figures for the past year in Dubai and other locations. He suggested Pakistan was deliberately trying to undermine the negotiations, as it ultimately wants to control the political landscape in Afghanistan, however rocky and dangerous for its own stability. “I don’t believe these people were arrested by coincidence. The [Pakistanis] must have known who they were, what kind of role they were playing,” adding it would now take a long time before there was enough confidence between both sides to really move forward.

“I see no evidence to support that theory,” immediately harrumphed US envoy to AfPak Richard Holbrooke, insisting that the US had no involvement in any of Eide’s talks, and knew of them only in a “general way”. In line with the Washington line, he heaped praise on Pakistan for the capture. At the same time, he welcomed “reconciliation of all Afghans”, whatever that could possibly mean. Of course, Pakistan protests its innocence, understandably preferring the American version of events. It just happens to have presented Washington with a multi-billion dollar bill for its selfless battle in the “war on terror”. Publically at least, Karzai is all smiles, calling (ominously?) Pakistan a “twin” during a visit to Islamabad last week.

A bizarre theory about the capture promoted by McChrystal is that Baradar, deemed more pragmatic than other top Taliban leaders, was “detained” to split him from fellow insurgents. McChrystal said recently that it was plausible that Baradar’s arrest followed an internal purge among Taliban leaders, that Omar himself, angry about Baradar’s negotiations with Karzai or the UN or whoever, squealed on him and tipped off Pakistani intelligence officials. But both McChrystal and Holbrooke are so out-of-touch with reality that we can probably safely assume that the opposite of what they say about anything.

During his trip to Afghanistan last week, Defence Secretary Robert Gates – the guy who in fact calls the shots – made the real US policy clear. He said it was premature to expect senior members of the Taliban to reconcile with the government, that until the insurgents believe they can’t win the war, they won’t come to the table. Said Heritage Institute researcher Lisa Curtis ghoulishly, “The military surge should be given time to bear fruit.”

The purpose of undermining the feeble attempts by Karzai or Pakistan or the UN or Bob’s-your-uncle to undermine the resistance is hard to fathom, considering that negotiations are now part of US policy. At the pompous London conference on Afghanistan in January, US advisers even came up with the very American idea of simply bribing them with a cool half billion greenbacks, a strategy that Russian officials (tongue-in-cheek?) also have urged on the Americans.

A key US protege in the Pakistan military with close contacts with the Taliban in Pakistan, Colonel Imam, said the idea of paying members of the Taliban to change sides would not work and only bogus figures would come forward. “It is shameful for a superpower to bribe.” He seconds Zaeef’s conclusion that negotiations, like Lisa’s strategy of mass murder, are fruitless. "The Taliban cannot be defeated and they will not be weakened by the recent capture of even senior commanders such as Baradar.

“The movement is so devolved that commanders on the ground make most of their own decisions and can raise money and arrange for weapons supplies themselves. The Taliban cannot be forced out, you cannot subjugate them,” he said. “But they can tire the Americans.” Obama is “doing what you should never do in military strategy, reinforcing the error. They will have more convoys, more planes, more supply convoys, and the insurgents will have a bigger target. The insurgents are very happy.” Of all the thousands of men he trained, he said, religious students like Mullah Omar were the most “formidable” opponents because of their commitment.

Hamid Gul, a former director of the Pakistani intelligence service, says the insurgents want three things from the US before talks could begin – a clearer timetable on the withdrawal of troops, an end to labelling them terrorists, and the release of all Taliban militants imprisoned in Pakistan and Afghanistan. What could be more obvious?

So Mr Obama, even if you ignore your own loyal opposition in Congress, where a motion to withdraw immediately garnered both Democratic and Republican support 10 March, even if you ignore the thousands of loyal Americans who marched on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq 20 March, calling for the same, please listen to these voices of reason.

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/

Monday, March 22, 2010

Michael Parenti has won awards from Project Censored, the Caucus for a New Political Science, the city of Santa Cruz, New Jersey Peace Action, the Social Science Research Council, the Society for Religion in Higher Education, and other organizations. In 2007 he was awarded a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from U.S. Representative Barbara Lee. During his earlier teaching career he received grants or fellowships from the Louis Rabinowitz Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Brown University, Yale University, State University of New York, and the University of Illinois. For several years he was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. He now serves on the advisory boards of Independent Progressive Politics Network, Education Without Borders, and the Jasenovic Foundation; as well as the advisory editorial boards of New Political Science and Nature, Society and Thought. He also served for some 12 years as a judge for Project Censored. He is the author of twenty-two books. Some 300 articles of his have appeared in scholarly journals, political periodicals and various magazines and newspapers. He appears on radio and television talk shows to discuss current issues and ideas from his published works. Dr. Parenti’s talks and commentaries are played on radio stations and cable community access stations to enthusiastic audiences in the United States, Canada, and abroad. He lectures on college campuses and before a wide range of community audiences, peace groups, labor organizations, scholarly conferences, and various other venues. His books are enjoyed by both lay readers and scholars, and have been used extensively in college courses.

Ralph Schoenman is a political activist and head of Socialist Organizer, a Marxist group in San Francisco. He also hosts a weekly radio program with Mya Shone, Taking Aim on the Pacifica Radio station WBAI 99.5 FM. Schoenman was an associate of the philosopher Bertrand Russell and was the executive director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. He was also Secretary General of the International Tribunal on U.S. War Crimes in Indochina, founder and Director of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, and Director of the Who Killed Kennedy Committee. Since the 1960s, Schoenman, an activist for over 45 years in support of international movements for liberation, peace and social justice movements, has traveled the world as a lecturer, activist and participant in revolutionary struggles. He supported Patrice Lumumba when the United State, Belgium, France and Britain cosnpired to overthrow the legendary Prime Minister of the Congo, met Malcolm X when they both were in London and was arrested in Bolivia for being in regular contact with Che Guevara during Che's struggle to assist revolutionairies in the Andean country. In fact, Schoenman was imprisoned in Bolivia for his contacts with Guevara. Schoenman is the author of "Iraq and Kuwait: A history suppressed". He is one of the few survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Hungary, in which seventy-five members of his group were killed. .

MG: Well, believe me, the pleasure is ours. As I said, this article that you wrote this week - there are very few articles that really catch my attention these days, as you can understand, Dr. Sabrosky, because there's just so much information out there and so many people talking. But this one particularly caught my interest and held my interest throughout the duration of reading this article - which I will be reading here in just a minute. But before I jump into that I'm just going to go ahead and give you the floor here, and let you say some things that I think need to be said.

AS: Mark, we had talked about this earlier and, you know, my feelings are that I'm perfectly willing to debate issues with anyone on any subject. Most of us have different views of things and none of us, I think, believes we have the entire truth for ourselves. Anyone who does is a fool.

On the subject that I wrote this time, it caught my attention as well because if there is anything that is more significant it is loyalty: loyalty to country, loyalty to people, loyalty to constitution. And to my displeasure and my shame - because I have some Jewish relatives, none of whom are Zionist - a large majority of American Jews give their allegiance to a foreign country. They may have American citizenship, but their allegiance is to Israel. And as I said in the piece, this is a form of political bigamy which is every bit as dishonest as marital bigamy. I'm not married now, but when I was, loyalty to my spouse was absolute. It has to be there. I could look and say, "Aha! there is Farrah Fawcett," and I could admire someone out there but I didn't give that person my allegiance. There's a difference between admiring from a distance and giving allegiance to that thing. And it's the same with a country.

Some of my [American] relatives are German, some are Irish, and all of them have a measure of allegiance to those cultures, but it's not a political allegiance. It's a social allegiance. It's like, "We're gonna stand up on St Patrick's Day," or "We're gonna stand up on Oktoberfest," or "We're gonna celebrate this," and we're proud of being German, or Irish, or whatever it happens to be. But none of us gives our allegiance to Ireland or to Germany. Jews do. And if we don't say it - I don't care if we're called anti-Semites or not - if we don't stand up and say, "Truth is truth, their allegiance is to a foreign country, they are traitors," then we're dishonest to ourselves.

MG: It would be one thing if they had allegiance to this foreign country, and this foreign country's national interests mimicked ours - but this isn't the case. The third leg of this chair here today is a man who experienced first-hand the fact that the national interests of this other country are not the same as the national interests of this country.

AS: But it's even more than that, Mark. I've had a bitter argument with one of my Jewish cousins who moved to Israel and kept an American citizenship. If someone loves another country enough to go there: more power to them. They go, that's it - they're gone. But they keep the American citizenship so that they can continue to participate in our elections, stand in our offices - look at Rahm Emanuel: he served in the Israeli armed forces, not in the American armed forces, and he is easily the second most powerful person in this country - easily.

That's treason. I will tell you right now: if Palestinians had the same influence in America I would oppose them in the same way. I don't care what the country is, what the allegiance is, what matters to me is that if you are American, you love this country first, last, and that's the end of it. And I don't care if you're Navy, Marine, whatever you are. Phil, you and I will probably agree on this and probably one of the few things that a Navy and Marine guy would agree on, but I think both of us would agree that loyalty to America is the only non-negotiable part of American citizenship.

Phil Tourney (USS Liberty Survivor): Absolutely, Alan, and I'll tell you, you being a United States Marine, that is inbred in you, and being a Marine - semper fidelis, always faithful - you're faithful to your country; and I'm sorry you had the argument with your cousin but you're still faithful to your country and I understand exactly where you're coming from.

Mark, I don't think at the beginning of the show that you read the Doctor's credentials off. I wish you would, because it means a lot, and it means a lot to me to hear them.

MG: Absolutely, and I will do that right now since I'm about to launch into reading this excellent article.

Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a ten-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College.

Now, not only that - Dr. Sabrosky correct me if I'm wrong here - not only are you a graduate of the US Army War College, but you were a director of studies there for some period of time - is that correct?

AS: That's correct. For five-and-a-half years.

MG: Five-and-a-half years as director of studies at the US Army War College. You know, of all the things that I would love to have trailing behind my name, Dr. Sabrosky, being the director of studies at the US Army War College would definitely be one of them.

AS: Thank you very much, I appreciate that.

MG: Alright, ladies and gentlemen, as much as it's going to appear as if I'm acting as a school mom here in reading this article to you. Nevertheless, I'm going to do it. Not as an intellectually insulting gesture towards you - because I know you can all read very well - but I was so impressed with this article that I want it entered into the record here within the context of this conversation, and that's the reason I'm going to read it.

MG: So writes Alan Sabrosky PhD, former director of studies at the U.S. Army War College.

Dr. Sabrosky, I cannot think of an article that I have read in recent memory that basically sums up the problem that we are dealing with right now as accurately and as succinctly as this essay that you have written. You have, for all intents and purposes, nailed this thing on the head. I guess the reason why I got so excited over this article, Dr. Sabrosky, is because one of things that I have noted about the problem that we're dealing with - in terms of Zionism, the power of the Jewish lobby, and what-not - is that everything is shrouded in some type of confusion or mystery, and I think deliberately so. I think one of the biggest components to this powerful foreign interest being able to get as far as it has. I mean, let's face it: it got away with attacking a United States ship for close to two hours killing 34 men - this was an act of war, they got away with it. Not only did they get away with it, they were rewarded with three-billion dollars a year minimum. When we look at the two wars that the United States finds herself in, and on the cusp of at least two others, and all of this for the benefit of a certain foreign country sitting on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea - they have been wildly successful at bringing all of this about and I think one of the main components of this is the fact that very few people really understand the nature of the problem - and I think that your article here basically lays out the problem, which is that when you have people that try to make this claim that they are loyal to America and, at the same time, loyal to a foreign government, it is a lie.

AS: It is, and it's more than that, Mark. What we need to stand up and say is that not only did they attack the USS Liberty, they did 9/11. They did it.

I have had long conversations over the past two weeks with contacts at the Army War College, at the Headquarters Marine Corps, and I have made it absolutely clear in both cases thatit is 100% certain that 9/11 was a Mossad operation. Period.

You know, Phil, I don't denigrate what happened to USS Liberty in the slightest - you understand that - but for most Americans what happened to the USS Liberty, or in Vietnam, was history. Now this is history. You know, they can be concerned about it, but they're not going to get mad about it.

9/11 has led directly to 60,000 Americans dead and wounded, God knows how many hundreds of thousands of people in other countries that we've killed or wounded or made homeless, and it's an on-going sore. It's not your sore from the USS Liberty, it's not my sore from Vietnam. Both of us have those, both of us care about. But this is an open wound. And what Americans need to understand is that they did it. They did it. And if they do understand that, Israel's going to disappear. Israel will flat-ass disappear from this Earth.

I sent a film to one of my colleagues and it basically had Americans grieving over their dead coming back. And I showed one of them - it was a woman - just wrenched by grief over her dead soldier. And I said, you know, if Americans ever know that Israel did this, they're gonna scrub them off the Earth, and they're not gonna give a rat's ass - forgive my language - what the cost is. They are not going to care. They will do it. And they should.And they should.

PT: Alan, your article and your heart and your testimony and what you believe in is heart-wrenching to me. It is like our founding fathers, and their shadows, talking and saying, "We have to fix this, we have to make our own way, and we have to do it now, or we will go down."

AS: Exactly. Absolutely, Phil. I agree fully.

PT: Your article needs to be shipped off to the library of congress immediately.

AS: Well, I can tell you it's being read by some people in Headquarters Marine Corps and at the Army War College. I sent it off to them this past week and I've had some long discussions with people up there, and there's some really, really unhappy people.

MG: What are they saying, if you can talk about that, Dr. Sabrosky?

AS: Astonishment. The first thing, Mark, is astonishment. They didn't know. They truly didn't know. And these are not unintelligent people. They really didn't know.

And the next statement is rage. Real rage. And the Zionists are playing this as truly an all-or-nothing exercise, because if they lose this one, if the American people ever realize what happened, they're done.

And I will tell you frankly - I don't think either one of you has any Jewish ancestry. I do. You know, I have one grandparent who's Jewish. As Phil Weiss from Mondoweiss were talking about it - he's a Jewish guy who puts a lot of critical stuff out there on Israel - and I said for the Orthodox Rabbinate I'm not a Jew. For the Nazis, I've been there. And if this explodes, I'm gonna go down with the rest of them. And I know this. I flat-out know this. But if that was the price for making America whole again...

When I took my oath 51 years ago to the United States marine corps, no one promised us life. No one did. They promised us duty and loyalty and service - and maybe death. And that's how they talked to us in 1959. I don't think they talk to them that way anymore. But in 1959 they did, and if my death were a requirement for the saving of America - well, hell, I could've died in Vietnam. It's my service, my country, my corps. And, Phil, it's like you in the Navy: we signed onto this, and we love our service. And none of us wishes to die. Certainly I don't. I don't think either one of you guys do. But if that's the price, then that's the price I pay. I mean that.

PT: When you're talking about Marines, I have the utmost respect and I know your duty to country. When the torpedo hit our ship and I opened up to scuttle, guess who I pulled out of there: a United States marine, named Bryce Lockwood. And he was holding on to another sailor and saved his life, and he received a silver star. God bless him for that.

And I understand wholeheartedly what's in your heart, because I have it my heart. I didn't learn it by becoming a sailor as such, but I learned it through the grace of God for saving our ship, I learned it through scholars like you, I've learned it through good friends like Mark Glenn and my shipmates - and I've learned it through actions of Israel. And when you struck me very, very hard just a second ago when you talked about 911. You're very willing to say that, yeah, they did it: 911. Yes, they did. And, you know, my heart broke. And I saw that plane - the last one - go into the tower. And to see that... I mean, I know it's in your heart, and Mark's, and everybody else's, to see your fellow Americans being slaughtered and murdered just as they did the USS Liberty. Alan, it is something that, if we don't talk about it, if we don't tell people about it - I believe God wants us to - and if we don't: shame on us.

AS: I agree very much on that side, and I'll tell you - I have a dream, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, and my dream is that the 5th and 6th US fleets take Israel and cream it.And that's the end of it.

MG: Just for the record, Dr. Sabrosky, it was about three years ago - and I can remember distinctly I was on a radio programme in the run-up to the reunion that Liberty guys were going to be having in DC - and I made a prediction on the air that I believed with all my heart at the time and I believe with all my heart now, but someday, some way - I don't know exactly how it's going to happen - I have my suspicions - but someday and some way, maybe a lot sooner than any of us realize, the United States is going to find herself at war with Israel. And I mean a real, live shooting war.

Now, technically speaking, we are at war with her because she is at war with us. She is out to destroy us. We just haven't figured it out yet.

My personal prediction is that probably - again, sooner than any of us realize or would like to envision - Israel is going pull off another 9-11. She's going to pull of another USS Liberty. Obviously, some pretty powerful people in some pretty prominent places, such as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, believe this is a possibility because he cut short a trip he made to Europe a few years ago to hastily fly to Israel to meet with his counterpart and warn him in no uncertain terms how important it was that there not be another USS Liberty part two.

So, in as far as what you two fellows were just talking about, that we need to talk about this, I'm going to offer another theory here for discussion. We would already have had that 9/11 part two, or that USS Liberty part two - that would already have been a fait accompli were it not for the fact that a growing number of people have been talking about this problem since 9/11.

I think that Israel has been watching all of this and has been saying, "We need to kind of let things cool a little bit for now - if we try to pull another one off right now then that's it: we're going to blow our cover."

AS: It's not only a matter of blowing our cover. If Americans ever truly understand that - they're history. It'll be a bloody, brutal war - and they're gone. I mean, it's not even going to be a close contest. And they know that. What they understand, I think, as well, is that their leverage is on the political appointments. Their leverage is not in the uniformed services.

If you pick up the Army Times, or the Navy Times, or any of the journals of any of the services you've got a very different view than you get looking at the Congress and the White House. And the military has not been bought. The military is loyal but it has not been bought. And if it ever understands this - really, really, deeply understands this - and this is what I got when I put some of these things to the Army War College and to Headquarters Marine Corps - and I mentioned to a contact in Headquarters Marine Corps, I said, "You know they did 9/11...," and it was, "You don't mean it." I said, "Absolutely".

And if they ever understand that, these people are history.

MG: Well, now let me ask you something, Doctor, and obviously I understand that we need to protect the names of the innocent here-

AS: There are no innocent! [laughter]

PT: I agree.

MG: I'd like to know a little bit more about this. I mean, these conversations that you're having with your colleagues who are still serving in uniform. What is the reaction on their part when you tell them things like this?

AS: First is disbelief, and what I show them immediately afterwards is an interview with a Danish demolitions expert named Danny Jowenko, and it shows the third building at the World Trade Center going down - WTC7. And they look at that, and I said, "Now you understand that if one of the buildings was wired for demolition, all of them were wired for demolition." And that's it. That's the tipping point.

I mean, getting into arguments about who was flying what, and where they were, and whether there was nano-thermite - those things are true, but they're incidental. The thing that's necessary is to tell people: three buildings went down; the third was not hit by a plane, it was wired for controlled demolition, therefore, all of them were wired for controlled demolition. And at that point the reaction is rage. First disbelief, and then rage.

MG: Well, I've got to tell you, that I find to be very encouraging because based upon the cursory conversations I have with some military people - and I have to be real careful about what I say because you just don't know what you're walking into when you start a discussion of this type with one of them - based upon these cursory conversations that I've had with some of them, they're clueless and they don't want to here about it. They are loyal to the flag that is on their left sleeve as a patch, and the thought that the government could be in any way involved in any kind of high crimes and treason against the people of the United States is just unthinkable to them, so I'm glad to hear that there still is some grey matter and some patriotism left - at least in the circles where you travel, Dr. Sabrosky.

AS: Well, it's not that they don't want to hear it, it's that don't know of it. What I have done when I've presented it to these people and I said, "Just look at this - just look at this picture. I'm not going to give you an argument - just look at it." And they look at the film and without exception they come back and they say, "They did it, didn't they." I said, "Yep - they did it."

PT: Can I jump in here for a second - I just wanted to mention, talking about military people, some of the most distinguished military people that I've ever had the pleasure to be around... Admiral Thomas Moore, former Joint Chiefs of Staff which supported us completely in the USS Liberty investigation, and so on and so forth.

And then Ray Davis - he was a commandant of the United States Marine Corps. He directly said - this is of course not going into 911 - that the USS Liberty was not a mistaken identity, it was an act of cold-blooded, premeditated murder. So there are people out there in the military.

Now these guys were retired at the time - but when you're educating people, like you're doing, Alan, people who serve in the military now, you're exactly right: they just don't know, because nobody knows. It's been hid up. Everything's been hid. It's been covered up so good it'd almost take a Messiah to get us out of this thing.

MG: Dr. Sabrosky, I wanted to ask you - since we are to a certain degree prognosticating today, and making predictions - what do you think is going to happen here?

I mean, I was having a conversation with someone the other day about this situation with Iran, and the fact of the matter is that irrespective of whether or not Iran is actually actively engaged in building a nuclear weapon, or not, the fact of that is that Israel cannot afford to have this war not take place. There has to be something that takes place, even if it's just lobbing a couple of bombs into Iran and then really spectacularising it through their control of the media. They have to do something to recoup some of their public image, so would you agree with me on that, and assuming that you do agree with me on that, what do you think Israel is going to be doing in the near future.

AS: We're going to have a war with Iran. And my guess is that the Arab Street is going to explode.

PT: I agree.

AS: And American forces, American units, like 5th fleet headquarters in Bahrain, the rest of it - there's going to be a casualty list that we're not even going to care to think about.

PT: Alan, I think this thing was predestined from day one. It started in Afghanistan. They go to Iraq, and Iran has been the big prize all along. What do you think?

AS: Yes. No question at all. And in fact if the Iraqi resistance hadn't been so strong it would have already happened in the second Bush administration.

PT: Absolutely. I agree 100%.

MG: So all of this reticence, reluctance - whatever you want to call it - what appears to be reticence and reluctance on the part of the Obama administration - what do you think is going on? I mean, look, just this past week we had some what I consider pretty dramatic things being said on the part of the Obama administration with regards to Israel with the settlements and what-not. What is this? Is this just posturing on the part of the Obama Administration or are they really trying to pull back on their end?

AS: The Obama Administration hasn't withheld a single dollar, a single plane - nothing. Words are cheap.

The Israelis made a tactical error in that they insulted Biden - and Biden is not one of my favorite people, but he is a street smart guy and he doesn't like being humiliated. This is a given. But nothing has happened to affect in a tangible sense anything that we're giving to Israel. Nothing. And as long as nothing happens to tangibly affect what we're giving to them, nothing else will matter.

MG: Why are we not already at war with Iran then?

AS: Partly because we can't find a good enough excuse for it that will allow us to sidestep what we're doing in Afghanistan and, to a lesser extent, Iraq. It's that there's just a little too much there.

I'm pretty sure that the pattern was: Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq 2003, Iran 2005, Syria 2007. The problem was that the Iraqi resistance didn't let that happen. So now the time frame is a little bit different, and I'm not sure how that's going to play out, but I think that the way we're going to it is to try and create an excuse for a war.

And after the war takes place people can question it, but it doesn't change the fact of the war.

MG: You're right. If there's anything that we learned from Vietnam it's that once the troops are committed, right or wrong, you stand by the troops. That's one of the things that I noticed with the first Gulf war, and this is before I knew anything about anything.

I thought, boy, when you look at the kind of protests that took place - and I was in college at the time of the first Gulf War - when you look at the kind of protests that took place during Vietnam - and of course on college you had a few people grumbling and saying this and saying that but, in general, the Neo-Cons really played the whole Vietnam thing beautifully - if such a word can be used for something as tragic as that. And don't misunderstand me, Dr. Sabrosky: I know that you're a Vietnam vet and I hold these guys in the highest regards too, and when I say they played this thing beautifully, they made the protesters look like these grotesque, ugly, unpatriotic people to the point where, when the next big war started, nobody would dare raise their voice up against the troops the way that they did in Vietnam.

AS: Yep, absolutely on it. Mark, I'm going to have to separate in just a minute.If I could make sort of a concluding statement... And I think that you would second me on this.

Nothing to me is more important than loyalty to or allegiance to my country. Nothing is. But that requires my country and my government to also behave in an honorable fashion. Our government, today, does not behave in an honorable fashion. And there is something in the Declaration of Independence which says that whenever any form of government becomes oppressive of these ends it is the right and duty of the people to alter or abolish it, and I think we have gone to the point where we need to alter or abolish it. And I say that as a man who spent his entire life loyal to the United States.

PT: I understand you. God bless you for that. God bless you.

MG: Ladies and gentlemen: "The Dark Face of Jewish Nationalism". Look it up on the internet - I don't think you're going to have any trouble finding it. Written by our very good friend and special guest tonight: Dr. Alan Sabrosky.

Doctor, I hope we will be lucky enough to have you back on the programme in the near future, and in the mean time please keep up your excellent work. Honestly, as much as this is going to sound like posturing to you, there are very few people, as I said, who say anything that really causes me to take a double-take and to sit down and pay attention, and you're definitely one of them.

Commentary: I think that there is a lot of indirect evidence pointing at the fact that Israel had a key role in the 9/11 events. I have, however, no idea how Dr. Sabrosky came to the conclusion that it was 100% certain that 9/11 was a Mossad operation. There is an expression which KGB officers like to use. They say that "it is important that the ears not stick out" (in a covert operation) referring to the image of a dog, or wolf, hiding behind an object with his ears visibly sticking out. I would say that I clearly see the "ears" of the Israelis "sticking out behind the burning WTC buildings". Alas, "seeing ears" is far from being a proof of anything.

I am sure that we will hear more from Dr. Sabrosky in the coming weeks and I will try to contact him personally to try to have him clarify that part of his statements.

First, go to Amazon.com (not Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr or any other Amazon site)Then click on "Gift Card" on the top of the pageThen click on "Email" at the "Ways to Send" menuFinally, choose a card and amount. That's it!

Cash by snail mail:

The SakerPO Box 711Edgewater, FL 32132-0711USA

Free Novels (PDF) for Saker Blog Supporters

e-book in *PDF* format - not paperback!

How to contact me:

Main email address: vineyardsaker@gmail.com (for example to be included in the "Saker's friends" low volume mailing list)Alternative/backup emails:vineyardsaker@mail.ruthesaker@unseen.is

RSS feeds for this blog:

WORDS TO LIVE BY:

Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. If ye continue in My word, then are ye My disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free

Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew (10:26) and Saint John (8:32)

Trust not in princes, nor in the children of men, in whom there is no safety. His breath shall go forth, and he shall return to his earth; in that day all his thoughts shall perish.

Holy Prophet and King David (Psalm 145:3-4 according to the LXX)

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.

Arundhati Roy

Thou shalt not be a victim.Thou shalt not be a perpetrator.And above all,Thou shalt not be a bystander

Yehuda Bauer

In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act

George Orwell

Each small candle lights a corner of the dark

Roger Waters

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill. I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

Mahatma Gandhi

I am for truth, no matter who tells it.

Malcolm X

Globalize the Intifada!

Lowkey

I am a pessimist by nature. Many people can only keep on fighting when they expect to win. I'm not like that, I always expect to lose. I fight anyway, and sometimes I win.

Protect Freedom - Join the Free Software Foundation!

Quenelle Epaulee

No to Internet censorship!

Save the Internet from corporate greed!

GNU/Linux distributions I recommend:

Debian, the Universal Operating SystemMint, the easiest to use distributionXubuntu, distribution for older hardwareKnoppix, general purpose distro on live-CDPuppy, small size distribution and live-CDTails, the privacy and security oriented distroUbuntu Studio, distribution for artistsTrisquel, the 100% free softwaredistro

Copyright Notice

All the original content published on this blog is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). For permission to re-publish or otherwise use non-original or non-licensed content, please consult the respective source of the content.

What's a Saker anyway?

The Saker is a large falcon which, sadly enough, is threatened (you can find more info on this wonderful bird here). Do these sakers really monitor vineyards? Well, one does for sure!